How To Find A Living Relative Free

The original content for this commodity was contributed past The National Institute for Genealogical Studies in June 2012. Information technology is an excerpt from their course Methodology - Part 1: Getting Started, Methodology - Function 2: Organizing and Skillbuilding, Methodology - Office 3: More than Strategies, Methodology - Function 4: Effective Searching and Recording, Methodology - Role v: How To Prove It, and Methodology - Part half dozen: Professional person Preparation and Practise by Louise St Denis, Brenda Dougall Merriman and Dr. Penelope Christensen. The Institute offers over 200 comprehensive genealogy courses for a fee($).

A Resources Not to be Missed...by Mike Karsen [edit | edit source]

Earlier rushing too deeply into your document search, you should make sure that you lot take fully wearied a valuable resource, your living relatives. Facts such as maiden names, exact location of your family's origin, or other family information could take months or even years to excerpt from a document search. Family lore can be learned simply  through the accounts of living relatives.

From your electric current list of family members start a 'to contact' list. The older members should, of course, exist your highest priority, but everyone has the potential to lead you to some valuable information. You will desire to obtain all possible family records and resources from them.

In improver, you lot volition proceed to add together names to your family tree and keep expanding your 'to contact' list. Finding relatives in the branches of the family with whom you have lost contact should be your next goal.

Skills Required [edit | edit source]

By now you realize that genealogy requires that y'all call up similar a detective. Your search for living relatives requires you to develop additional skills:

1. Being Inquisitive

Exercise not be agape to ask questions, fifty-fifty if some seem a chip personal. You need to uncover all of the family unit facts to be a good family historian. In addition, sometimes open-ended questions are useful:

"What else tin you tell me virtually him/her?"
"Is there anything else I should take asked?"
"Who else should I talk to?"

2. Being Willing to Call a Stranger

Sometimes calling people we do not know is a bit intimidating. Be sure you accept a mini-script in your head (or even written down) before calling. You should be able to explain how you are related to the individual and why y'all are calling (e.g. "I'm compiling a family history which I'grand going to share with the entire family"). Most people will be helpful once they know who yous are and what y'all are trying to accomplish. Do not let the very few people who are uncaring foreclose you from making these calls and attaining your college goal.

3. Persistence

You lot must go along at your search and not go out any stone unturned. Once y'all realize the many tools at your disposal, you lot can discover many paths to follow. It is possible that at some indicate you may hit that brick wall where you take tried everything you tin retrieve of. At this time, certificate all steps taken and put your piece of work aside. When you selection it upward again in a calendar week, a month, or even months later with a fresh mind, new paths may announced to you.

How to Observe Them? [edit | edit source]

Every bit your 'to contact' list grows you will keep re-prioritizing it. It is often best to focus on one branch of your family at a fourth dimension. This will help y'all keep your mind straight on a smaller group of individuals and relationships. Information technology is highly advisable to keep a notebook or periodical where y'all log each contact and write notes on each conversation. This volition be very helpful when you try to retrieve the steps of your search.

Develop an 'Individual Contour' (IP) for each individual y'all are trying to locate. This IP should incorporate the post-obit data:

1. Full name (including maiden name)
2. Approximate historic period
3. Where individual was built-in and lived
4. Occupation
5. Names of parents, siblings, spouse, children, and when each was born
6. Other information
   

At this bespeak, you are probably thinking "If I knew all of this already, I would not need to detect the person."  In nearly cases, you volition not accept all of this information. By recording whatever you have, however, y'all can organize your search more efficiently. These facts are the clues you will use to observe your missing relative. Your search will help to fill up in more of the IP as you go on. The process, in fact, is trying to build a circle of people (parents, siblings, spouse, children) around the person. These intermediaries provide alternate routes to the original private.

Earlier starting on your search for the private, try to think back to who might know more than virtually the individual from the people yous accept already contacted. Who might take an old family phone book? You are now ready to offset your public search. This iterative process will have you from ane source to some other while e'er trying to add more facts to the IP. Eventually y'all will find the address/telephone number of your relative.

Key Bachelor Records [edit | edit source]

Today we are lucky to have the Internet, where more and more data is existence made available every mean solar day. These records come with a warning that their accuracy must be judged on who is making them available and the reliability of their sources. The other records we will review here are some traditional genealogical records.

Internet [edit | edit source]

Many online telephone directories are at present available for non only standard telephone lookups, only likewise reverse ones past telephone number or address. Some of the address lookups allow you to leave off the house number and become everyone on a specific street. In this way, you can contact someone who lives near where your relative lives or once lived. When looking for an individual proper noun, y'all may demand to try different formats of it (due east.one thousand. with and without middle initial). For females, exist sure to also look for listings with just a first initial. Women sometimes do this to protect themselves. For like reasons, a widowed woman oftentimes keeps her phone listed with her married man's name long after he is gone. Do remember that only individuals with listed phone numbers tin exist found in these public directories.

With websites continuing to demand to find boosted acquirement, you will often observe offers of links to sites that provide information for a fee. While these may be quite legitimate sites, you probably should reserve their use until all other avenues have been exhausted. With the Internet yet a very inconsistent source of information, these databases do not yield exactly the same results. Try a few sites and searches in dissimilar formats earlier concluding that y'all cannot find the individual.

White pages allows for both residential and business concern lookups, reverse address and phone numbers lookups.

Switchboard allows for both residential and business organisation lookups and reverse telephone numbers lookups.

Infobel is a mega site that does all of the above by linking to many different directory websites.

Search Engines are among the most powerful new tools on the Internet. They let yous to search nearly the entire Spider web for a name, place, or anything that interests you. You tin search for multiple keywords to try to limit the search. One of the biggest problems you may find is that your search can yield too many websites.

Fifty-fifty though the search engine has a way of prioritizing the results, y'all may still have to sift through many hits before you detect ones useful to y'all. Each search engine has a "aid" section, which explains the rules for amalgam effective searches. A sample search for a relative named "Harry Smith" yielded the following:

'Harry Smith' yielded 44,500 hits

'Harry Smith'+Indiana yielded two,030 hits

'Harry Smith'+Indiana+accountant yielded 37 hits

In this case the number of hits was greatly reduced when more than facts were added from Harry'due south IP—that he was from Indiana and that he was an accountant. The sites that incorporate references represent places where your relative's proper name may be mentioned for some activity he/she does or did participate in or is/was associated with. You lot may take to e-mail or phone call the organization that sponsors the site to become on your relative's trail. Of course your "Harry Smith" may not be amidst the 37 establish here. And so you lot will need to try yet another path.

Google is i of the most utilized sites today. Information technology is very easy to use and a good identify to start. Use 'advanced search' for complicated searches.

Enquire offers fantabulous avant-garde searching capability.

Traditional Genealogy Records [edit | edit source]

Death records are important in adding information to our Private Profile (IP). Today more and more than of these can be institute online. Our primary goal here is to observe an obituary or expiry observe, which contains valuable data most someone in the family circumvolve. These notices generally include names of all immediate family members—including married names of daughters, name of funeral home, and possibly the proper name of cemetery. The following are useful in searching for death data. Death certificates have been required in most locales since early in the 20th century. The key information shown often includes parents' names, name of cemetery and funeral dwelling, too every bit date of death. VitalChek lists where to send for vital records including (birth, wedlock, and death) in the USA.

Social Security Death Index (SSDI) lists over 70M individuals whose deaths have been reported to the Social Security Administration (SSA) in the The states. It mostly lists individuals who died after 1962 and who had a social security number (i.e. who were in the work force) and allows searches by proper name or another field. The database gives the individual'south Social Security Number, nativity date (as reported to the SSA by the applicant), the date of death (unremarkably only the month and year), where his or her last benefit was sent (not the identify where the death occurred), and the state where the original application to the SSA was fabricated (non where the person was born). In one case you know the month of decease you can search elsewhere for the death notice or obituary. Y'all can search the SSDI at FamilySearch™.

Obits and death notices tin can exist found in the local paper where the death occurred or where the person lived. These newspapers are ordinarily establish on microfilm in your local library. You can call the library straight and enquire the reference librarian for assistance in finding what you need. Alternatively, you lot tin inquire your own local library to see if they tin can obtain the specific microfilm via inter-library loan. There are many newspapers that at present have online indices, which also can be searched. You tin can either talk to the local librarian or search Cyndi's List for a current list.

Another option is a group of volunteers who exercise obituary lookups. Check the Obituary Lookup Volunteers website. Once yous know the name of the cemetery, you lot can contact it and ask for any records on file on the deceased and for the proper name of next of kin. Generally, in an effort to protect the family, they volition not provide this information. They will, however, often be willing to forward a letter of the alphabet from you lot to that individual. Similarly, funeral homes maintain records that have data most the next of kin, sometimes even with addresses and phone numbers.

While we have focused only on a narrow ready of records here, many additional 'traditional' genealogical records can add clues to our search. These records include matrimony, birth, census, city directories, property, and many others. Again, as you do more of your family enquiry and discover more of these documents, yous volition be able to go back to your search for more living relatives.

Serendipities [edit | edit source]

As you find these living relatives, meeting them tin exist a wonderful experience. You can even plan to visit them during your travels. In this way you lot take a great opportunity to observe actual family unit photos and documents outset paw rather than remotely. These visits have the potential to develop your relationships into special ones, which can turn your genealogical pursuits into a real living feel and tin can be a real serendipity.

Finding living relatives is a very challenging office of the genealogical experience, yet i of the most rewarding. It gets you lot out of the libraries and courtroom houses—assuasive you to interact with existent people and observe insights into your family that are impossible to find whatsoever other manner.

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Data in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online courses Methodology - Part 1: Getting Started, Methodology - Part 2: Organizing and Skillbuilding, Methodology - Part 3: More Strategies, Methodology - Function 4: Constructive Searching and Recording, Methodology - Role 5: How To Prove It, and Methodology - Function 6: Professional Training and Practice offered by The National Establish for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about these courses or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We tin be contacted at wiki@genealogicalstudies.com

We welcome updates and additions to this Wiki folio.

Source: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Finding_Living_Relatives_%28National_Institute%29

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